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Somewhere deep in the Marshlands during a particularly wet afternoon,
Gail still felt amazed at how all foxes seemed to know each other.
The gopher didn't come from a particularly close community himself, never reaching a stage where the mammals next door even expected him to remember their names. Moving to the Marshlands didn't seem as if it would change things that much. Yet taking in the oddly nicknamed "PseudoFox", usually just known as "Pseudo", as a roommate gave Gail a window into a lifestyle of interlocking den upon den that the gopher found annoying and fascinating in equal measure.
On the one paw, Gail enjoyed sitting back and listening to stories of adventurous predators venturing into tough situations before getting by with only their wits. He enjoyed having this aura of sympathetic protection going from street to street as well, being perceived as one of those prey mammals that somehow "got it" about predator culture. On the other paw, Gail dealt with the unyielding irritation of how every other place he stepped into— from bookstores to groceries to even therapist offices and more— had some orange furred creature "earwigin' for somethin' to tell the mates over a pint".
Gail took in a deep breath as he stood outside of the run-down apartment complex. The Marshlands' pouring rain coupled with its intermittent power outages, both of them striking hard that morning, had encouraged Gail's roommate to invite the gopher to go out for something. It was simply a lunch meeting with of the fox's friends. It truly wasn't a big deal, but the quality of "friendship" that Pseudo tended to have never exactly sat well with Gail. The sheer cultural gap made things even tougher.
Psuedo looked down at his gopher companion. The two mammals met eyes with each other and traded nods. The fox duly thrust a paw forward and knocked. A rapid scampering sound shot out from behind the wood, and the door yanked open.
The gopher froze. He took in the full form of the massive bat standing before him. The tall mammal's smokey grey wings wrapped around the bat's tight-fitting Celtic F.C. jacket, with some kind of ominous black globules dripping out the side of his menacing, wide-open maw.
"Ay, it's bucketin' down, ya right arsehole!" The bat rolled his eyes before smacking Pseudo on the chest. "Quit trailin' that couple of dossers ya always on about and get some sense in ya, fer Gawd's sake!"
"Feck off, mate!"
The fox hurled his arms out and embraced the bat. They both snapped their eyes shut and pulled themselves together. Gail remained awkwardly off to the side, clutching his small umbrella over his head.
"Ay, let's get the hell in," Pseudo remarked, seizing the gopher by the shoulder. The little mammal let out a sharp whine— by instinct, not even thinking— and got pushed over to the side of a ratty couch. "And shut the feckin' door behind us, Natty!"
Natty's apartment appeared barely describable to the gopher. Every corner had some random pile of knickknacks shoved into it. Right across from him, he made out a pair of bowling trophies in between rolled-up wads of pornographic magazines; all of that had gotten stacked atop a leaking bag of something clumpy and orange stamped "plant fertilizer". Ugly plaid colors stretched across every old bit of furniture.
"We've finally got the teensy one here, ay!" The bat grinned as he locked eyes with the gopher. The way in which Natty eagerly spread out his wings doubled the weird atmosphere. "It's 'bout time, Pseudo!"
"I would," Gail began, hesitating as the other mammals stepped in a half circle around him, "really prefer if you'd avoid species-charged language such as 'teensy one', 'small one', 'little one', and—"
"Take that puss off ya face!" The bat clutched the gopher's arm before letting out a firm laugh, Natty forcing Gail to shake along with him.
"Uh, what? Why?" Gail squeaked, glancing helplessly up at the fox.
"Natty," Pseudo began, pulling the gopher out of the bat's grip, "is tellin' ya that—"
"Look, mate, I know I sound thick as a plank," Natty remarked. He looked down at the stain-coated floor as he flipped around a chair for Gail to sit on. "But I promise ya that I'm only slaggin' ya! Every boyo comin' through that door is like that!"
"Okay..." The gopher didn't know how to get into a real conversation with Pseudo's friends, and he didn't want to learn. He went to sit down.
"Wait, feck!" Natty cried out, pulling the chair back. The gopher gripped one of the bat's wings and sucked in a little breath. "This one is banjaxed! Sit on the puke green one, mate! That one ain't plannin' to shove a loose spring up your arse!"
"Natty," Pseudo interjected, delicately patting a paw on Gail's back and leading the gopher to a different chair, "is the youngest of four 'Natterer's Bats' all raised in Belfast. That ol' clan goes back... shiet! Livin' among foxes for at least six feckin' generations now, ay?"
"Ya are bang on, mate," Natty replied. He flung his body down onto a nearby couch; his wings rippled across the gaudy brown-and-black pattern as his legs idly tapped together.
"Liam, back in the kitchen or whatever the feckin' hell he is," Pseudo continued, "well, those pine martens helped found all the concrete shiet-boxes our types keep callin' 'home'."
"Oh, God," Natty said, banging the back of his head on the fabric, "I bunked off today just to get some decent eatin' for once! Please, tell that manky tube to finish up! Don't care if he's completely knackered after being langers all last night— a bat needs to feed!" He pointed off into the hallway.
"Yes, your feckin' majesty," Pseudo replied, stepping over.
The gopher nervously shifted about in place. He tried to place the smell that wafted all around him. Concentrated sweat mixed in with both burning cardboard and layers of moldy fruit— at least, well, that's what Gail's nose told him.
"That ol' bastard over there, leanin' on the fishtank," the bat said, flopping with his wing over to Gail's side, "goes by the full feckin' title of 'Father Jack Ballywinterrourkewood'."
The gopher turned his head over to the sickly-looking box of tainted water, a few goldfish duly wiggling around at the bottom, and watched a seemingly ancient hunk of orange and grey fur snore. With half of his teeth missing, the fox's drool slowly but surely oozed out of his mouth down onto his clerical collar, drop by drop stained with some unidentifiable kind of brown crust. The fox had tossed himself upon a short yet wide couch with tufts of cotton bursting out every few inches. Gail shifted about in his own chair.
"His feckin' chest won't move, but," Natty went on, "trust me. He's not dead. Just sleepin' 'till four p.m. as usual. Of course, he's one-hundred-feckin'-percent twisted as well, mate, but then again he's always like that even when he's awake."
"Okay."
"That arsehole is how Pseudo and I first met," added the bat, "but tellin' that tale will keep ya here until the next feckin' ice age! Better to just relax 'till the eatin' gets all done, ay?"
"Relaxing," Gail repeated, looking at two bottles of wine jutting out from a basket.
"Keep those two a secret though, mate, if you can," Natty remarked.
Without really thinking, the gopher reached out with his paws onto the nearby desk and raised the bottles up a bit. He couldn't make out the tiny writing on the labels. They gave off an accidental yet loud 'clink' as he held them.
"Drink!" Father Jack screamed out.
The gopher leaped straight into the air, his body flopping awkwardly across the table. He stared out behind him. The old fox had opened up his eyes wide as satellite dishes, rapid fidgets shooting through his vein-soaked limbs.
"It's, uh, it's nothing special," Gail muttered. The fox could somehow shoot an acrid smell out halfway across the room in the gopher's direction. "Father Jack?"
"Large Cabernet Franc and small Blended Roussanne!" Father Jack yelled.
"You can tell all that just from the sound of the bottles touching?" Gail cried, checking the labels again and sucking in a breath.
"Drink!" Father Jack bent his body around and leaned it up against a nearby lamp. He waved an arm around in place, lumbering it like Frankenstein's monster. "Feck! Arse! Drink, now! No more feckin' water!" His fur seemed to change color as he opened his mouth wide. "Drink!"
"Easy, Father," the bat interjected, flying over to the fox's side.
The old predator let out an angry, whining noise back. He pushed back one of the bat's wings yet let the other wing guide him back down into the couch. Gail simply watched.
"Gettin' a glass right now, ay?" Natty asked, which satisfied the fox for the time being. The bat sauntered over to Gail's chair.
"Half back to sleep already," the gopher murmured, giving the bottle-containing basket over to the bat.
"Speakin' of which," the bat started to say, turning his eyes back upon the gopher, "I hear ya might go on the lash Saturday, ay?"
Gail closed his eyes and tried to force himself to feel calm. He racked his brain for what he knew about Irish culture and society. If one of his distant relatives were there, the older mammal would scold Gail for his "lack of understanding important heritage", but Gail already had way too many pressures in life already.
"Uh, well, maybe?"
"Don't bring Liam's brothers, whatever Pseudo says," Natty went on, letting out a chuckle, "shiet! They all went to Trinners, but none of them— feck, listen to me— are the full shilling! Danny got so ossified Wednesday, ya?" The bat produced a wine glass from one of the adjacent piles of random things.
"Yeah..."
"Started effin' and blindin', non-stop, after gettin' the wrong sauce on his steak! Got in a scrap with a honey badger, made a right bags of the whole night! And Aran? He's a rugger bugger for sure!"
"I'm just going to see what's up with Pseudo," Gail murmured, sweaty awkwardness dripping down his cheeks.
The bat gave a friendly nod back. Gail stood up. He stepped over to the hallway and turned left, seeing what he thought was the kitchen.
"Hey, I don't mean to be rude, but I was wondering what was taking—"
"Aw, feckin' hell!" Pseudo called out.
The gopher watched as thick smoke shot out of the room's big oven. A pine marten with gigantic, piercing eyes and a patchy brown figure wiggled over to a fire extinguisher. Gail knew that he should do something besides simply watch Liam speed around, but the gopher still hesitated. Something about the acrid smell seemed to paralyze Gail's every move. Meanwhile, the fox clutched the extinguisher and squeezed the end.
The extinguisher promptly burst into flames.
"Well, that's a surprise," Gail whispered, trying to snap himself back to normal.
Pseudo hurled the device onto the floor. Gail swatted a paw out and the extinguisher toppled over onto a wet pile of dirty laundry. Gail looked over at the fox and the tube mammal, both of them huddling behind him and staring blankly at the device.
With its far end buried in a bunch of wet socks and stained underwear, the length of the extinguisher read in large, bold letters: "Made in Britain".
"Oh, that explains it," Gail remarked, scratching his nose.
"Well, the feckin' roast is no more!" Liam exclaimed. He made a bunch of dooking moves against the nearby cabinets before angrily kicking a stack of used batteries. "God!"
"You made a complete haymes of that," Pseudo added, sighing.
"Look, after being scarlet with the whole week's shiet so far," Liam said, staring at the charred remains of whatever had been cooking in the oven, "I can't feckin' go—"
"But what if, ay!" Pseudo interjected. He stepped over to the nearby window. A BugBurga restaurant stood halfway across the street. "What if we got feckin' Burga and made it up like our own eatin'?"
"Now you're suckin' diesel, my mammal!" Liam exclaimed, rubbing his paws together.
"Uh, could we really just... not..." whimpered Gail.
"You are one sick ol' arsehole, Pseudo," the fox declared to his reflection in the window. He reached out and yanked it open.
"This holy show of a— oh, come on!"
The three mammals looked over to see Natty glancing into the kitchen.
"Ay, why're ya gawkin'?" Pseudo asked. Liam quickly went to the fox's side. Gail, for his part, faded into the corner and tried to pretend that he was no longer there.
"Been here donkey's years and never seen all that feckin' smoke out of the oven," Natty remarked, making an accusing point.
"Ain't smoke, you arsehole!" Liam hopped onto the kitchen table and made a big show with his gestures. "It's steam! Steam from the 'Steamed Pirries' we're havin', ay?"
"Mmmmmmmmmm," moaned Pseudo, rubbing a paw against his belly.
"Such a geebag, you and your fox both," the bat muttered. Yet he still turned around and walked away.
"Phew!" Liam and Pseudo both spat out.
Gail shut his eyes, sweating profusely, and tried to ignore the fox helping the pine marten leap out of the window. The gopher headed out of the kitchen and slowly stepped over to what he presumed was the dining room.
A few minutes later...
"Natty, ay!" Liam yelled into the room.
"It's 'bout feckin' time," the bat remarked, leaning back in the dining room chair. His smile shrunk into a flat expression as he watched the pine marten carrying in a tray covered in sandwiches— crumbled up soy steaks covered in barbecue sauce put in between sesame seed buns.
"Open yer gob and have some wicked tasty burgers!" Pseudo exclaimed.
"Ya feckin' said 'Steamed Pirries', didn't ya?" Natty asked, turning up his nose.
"Ya got wax in those ungodly huge ears of yours, mate," Liam retorted, shoving forward plates, "we said 'Steamed Patties', sure as anything!"
"The... 'Steamed Patties'?" Natty asked. He gave Gail a 'can you believe this' snide look, but the gopher simply clutched a burger silently between his paws and began to chew.
"That's what our tubes call burgers, ay!" Pseudo interjected.
"For God's sake..."
"It's a 'regional dialect' kind of line, arsehole," Liam declared, taking a burger for himself.
"Ya call 'Burgers' a bunch of 'Steamed Patties'?" Natty took a few bites. "What feckin' region, then?"
"County Down!"
"More like 'county of down's'," Natty remarked. The rest of the burger basically evaporated. "Ya have to remember that ah went out of Belfast all over God's green earth, and never heard of—"
"Oh, not there, you arsehole! Ya hear that talk over at Downpatrick and all over there!"
"Where Saint Patrick is buried? And where... ww, hell," Natty muttered, reaching for another burger. He didn't look like he wanted to press the point.
A few minutes passed. Pseudo made a goofy sign over at Gail's direction. Liam, for his part, beamed. Gail buried his face in his paws.
"These look pretty feckin' similar to the eatin' at a BugBurga," the bat commented, locking eyes with Liam.
"Ya still on that, mate? Take a minute to think!" The pine marten awkwardly made a stiff laugh. "Patented family set of recipes and all that shiet, ay? That's the real truth!"
"Recipe for 'Steamed Patties'?"
"That's feckin' right!"
"And ya call 'em that? Even though they're obviously flame feckin' grilled, mate?" Natty flipped the top bun off of a burger and brandished it in the air. "Ya just got Phoenix-Wright-ed, ya geebag..."
"It's... and... well..." Liam stammered, brushing a paw along his forehead.
"Ya have... and we... but... feck..." Pseudo mumbled, staring at the floor and scooting away from the table entirely.
"Excuse me for a Goddamn moment, ay?" the pine marten asked. Not even waiting for an answer, he slithered across the floor and out into the hallway.
"Fine," Natty muttered. He glanced back at Gail. The gopher still had his face buried in his paws.
"Well, I'm truly knackered," Pseudo remarked, making a big show out of yawning, "and need to get out of this shiet-box to somewhere where a fox can have a proper feckin' rest."
"Ay, I need to get over to Danny's," Natty said, looking at his watch, "so both ya morans can go back to suckin' each other's squirties or whatever else ya want."
"Goodbye to all you arseholes!" Pseudo yelled, making a faux-salute. He sped out of the dining room into the main hallway and the door out of the apartment. Gail, for his part, felt some kind of hesitation keeping him from moving.
"And it's," Natty began, the bat standing up straight. He suddenly noticed a thick cloud of smoke coupled with flashing redness coming from an adjacent door. "For the love of God's white wool, what's all that feckin' nonsense?"
"Aurora Zootropolis?" Liam blurted out, scurrying into the middle of the dining room.
"Aurora Zootropolis!" Natty screamed, turning every syllable into an insult. His eyes locked into little slits. "At this feckin' part of the day? In this feckin' apartment in this feckin' city? All bundled up into that little cradle of shiet you call a kitchen?"
"Uhhh... yes?" Sweat poured all across the tube mammal's wiggling body.
"Okay, then," Natty remarked, folding his wings across the table, "so... can I see it?"
"... no."
A couple minutes later...
The gopher carefully buckled himself into the passenger seat. The fox slowly but surely moved into the driver's seat and held up the key. As the slender green sedan started up, the two mammals finally looked at each other once again.
"Promise me that you won't take me to any more of your friends," the gopher said, tensely slipping his paws against the upholstery.
"Promising ya right now that no other feckin' mammal will start slagging ya—"
"And you can quit talking like a leprechaun."
"Sorry," the fox said, pulling the sedan out of the parking spot, "it's a... reflex that gets hard to stop."
The End